Abstract
Recently, smart stents have been developed by integrating various sensors with intravascular stents for detecting vascular restenosis or monitoring intravascular biomedical conditions such as blood pressure or blood flow velocity. The information on biomedical signals is then transmitted to external monitoring systems via wireless communications. Due to the limited volumes of blood vessels and limited influence of blood flow, antennas with good radiation performance are required for intravascular applications. In this paper, we propose a stent antenna composed of multiple rings containing crowns and struts, where each ring is connected with one connector. Unlike a conventional stent, wherein each ring is connected with several connectors, the single connector prevents the random distribution of electrical current and thus achieves good radiation performance. The implantable stent antenna is designed for the frequency range of 2 to 3 GHz for minimum penetration loss in the human body and tissues. Mechanical FEM simulations were conducted to ensure that the mechanical deformation was within specific limits during balloon expansions. A prototype was fabricated with laser cutting techniques and its radiation performance experimentally characterized. It was demonstrated that the fabricated stent antenna had an omnidirectional radiation pattern for arbitrary receiving angles, a gain of 1.38 dBi, and a radiation efficiency of 74.5% at a resonant frequency of 2.07 GHz. The main contribution of this work was the manipulation of the current distributions of the stent for good EM radiation performances which needed to be further examined while inserted inside human bodies. These research results should contribute to the further development of implantable wireless communications and intravascular monitoring of biomedical signals such as blood pressure and blood flow velocity.
Highlights
IntroductionIntravascular stents have been widely used in the medical treatment of vessel obstructions for patients with vascular diseases such as stroke, heart attack, and aneurysm [1,2]
In past decades, intravascular stents have been widely used in the medical treatment of vessel obstructions for patients with vascular diseases such as stroke, heart attack, and aneurysm [1,2].Stents are essentially wire meshes inserted into narrow blood vessels via a catheter and medical surgery
The main contribution of this work was the manipulation of the current distributions of the stent for good electromagnetic waves (EM) radiation performances which needed to be further examined while inserted inside human bodies
Summary
Intravascular stents have been widely used in the medical treatment of vessel obstructions for patients with vascular diseases such as stroke, heart attack, and aneurysm [1,2]. Modern stents are composed of open cells, resonant antennas at low frequencies, such as 900 MHz [19]. Cells, unit eachisunit is composed of crowns and struts, and ring each is ring is connected by multiple connectors This design would cause random current distribution and reduce radiation performance. Single-connector stent antenna could becould applied to other to vessels not limited balloon expansion. The single-connector stent antenna be applied otherand vessels and notto coronary arteries. The single-connector stent antenna was resonant in the range of 2 to in. In ForFigure comparison, multi-connector stent antenna and when vessels, insertedasinto blood vessels, as shown. Ratio of 0.3, yield stress of 590 MPa, and ultimate strength of 1689 MPa
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